Latest news and events
Key Stage 2 (7-11 years) – Amber Class
School Year 2021-2022
The Year Ahead in Amber Class
Here is a little insight into the teaching and learning that has taken place so far with the topic in Amber class.
What has been happening in our class in Term 1?
Amber Class have been working diligently and are well on their journey as Oceanologists! We started our topic by first of all sharing some amazing facts and knowledge that we already know and asking some truly great questions that we hope to answer as we progress through the term. “Is there life in the deepest layer of the ocean?” “Which creatures live in the abyss?” “Which creature is the most dangerous?”
We have spent some time learning about lines of longitude and latitude, as these assist us with GPS and locating places on Earth; and how they divide planet Earth into the Tropics, Temperate and Polar zones, which affect the temperatures of our oceans. We then focused on the geographical location of our oceans; cool facts about them; and the types of sea creatures that can be found in them. In the coming weeks, we will be delving under the surface to see what lies beneath in each of the layers.
What has been happening in our class in Term 2?
Amber class are well on their way into the past with learning about the Ancient Maya civilisation. Designing and building our own Maya Temples was a great way to become immersed in some of the Maya traditions and beliefs. As we have progressed through the term, we have been learning and acquiring knowledge to help us work towards answering our over-arching question:
“Which civilisation in the history of the world do you believe to be the most successful?”
So far, we have identified where the Maya people settled and the many city states they created and occupied; who ruled the Maya; how society was organised; why they built pyramids and temples; and their beliefs and many rituals. In the coming weeks, we will continue to learn more about their traditions, family life, jobs, communication, etc. as well make comparisons with other civilisations including the Ancient Egyptians, the Ancient Greeks and even modern civilisation to help us draw some conclusions to our challenging question.
Class Teacher: Caroline Nutting
Drama Day – The Mayans
What a fun Mayan drama day we had in Amber class! It was wonderful to see everyone’s efforts with dressing up – lots of colour and some very traditional Mayan face paint designs. As well as our costumes, Amber class had also been working hard in art, science and English lessons designing and creating Mayan puppet characters and writing their own playscripts to depict an aspect of Mayan culture, in what was a fantastic shadow puppet performance for the whole school! Students also had a go at playing a rather challenging but traditional Mayan game `Pok-ta-Pok`, so challenging that we had to adopt some of the rules. Even so, it still proved quite the challenge – players could only touch the ball with their elbows, knees and hips! Needless to say, not many goals were scored and no students were sacrificed on this day, as was common in Mayan times.
A highlight of our day was our delicious banquet: a meal full of typical Mayan foods (which was very similar to Mexican food today). Students worked together with our Nutrition teacher to cook up all of our tasty and very healthy dishes, which went down a treat! To finish our day, Amber class enjoyed some traditional spicy hot chocolates made with pure Cocoa powder. Definitely a Mayan day to remember!!
Timetable (click to zoom):
